Left To Burn

By Left To Burn Perhaps it’s an expression of our collective fear. But the perception that fascism is making a comeback is much in evidence, both on the left and elsewhere. No idea is so bad that it is ever truly dead. With the political fortunes of the populist right on the rise, it’s natural to think in terms of worst-case scenarios. But being alert to threats is one thing and claiming that the...

By Left To Burn As the Russian invasion of Ukraine looks more and more like a quagmire, the broader consequences of Vladimir Putin’s aggressive policy come increasingly into view. Far from splitting the EU or slowing the expansion of NATO, the Ukraine invasion appears to be having precisely the opposite consequences. With Sweden and Finland preparing to join, and Switzerland seriously considering...

By Left To Burn Voting is so yesterday. That is if you want to elect a political party that’s neither far-right nor neoliberal. The results of the 2022 French presidential election bear this out. Fought out in the second and final round, by two rightist parties purporting to be ideologically distinct, leftist parties had earned enough votes in the first round that they could have made it to the fi...

By Left To Burn Russia’s military incursion into Ukraine has lasted nearly two months now. But the focus of the fighting has recently shifted.  The Russians no longer seem intent on the capture of Kyiv and other cities in the north of the country. Rather, they have shifted to a concentration on the Donetsk Basin.  There are some fairly obvious reasons why they should be interested in this particul...

By Left To Burn A French topic has to have global significance to appear above the fold. Even then, it’s mostly European media that pay attention, not North American. Even though France has been in the midst of an intense election season the last few months,  it’s mostly been second and third-page equivalent news. If there’s been a big story, it’s been the presidential campaign of outspoken racist...

By Left To Burn The “great resignation” may have been blown out of proportion by media fears and progressive dreams, but the increasing dysfunction of neoliberalism is creating spaces for long-dormant labour movements to find a place in the sun. At the same time, the upcoming elections in France highlight the enduring power of populism. Claiming traditionally socialist concerns about increases in...

By Left To Burn The Russian invasion of Ukraine shambles into its fifth week.  With estimates of combat fatalities topping 7000, Moscow has now lost as many men as the U.S. Marines lost in the Battle of Guadalcanal. Civilian casualties are hard to estimate, but are certainly large and growing fast. The United Nations reported approximately 1900 between 21 February and 15 March.  In the latest epis...

By Left To Burn For two decades, Vladimir Putin has doggedly pursued the goal of recouping the fortunes of the USSR, brought low by the end of the Cold War and the chaotic transition to neoliberalism.  From Chechnya to Crimea, Putin has used the Russian military as a tool to remake Russia's Near Abroad in his own interest and image. With Russian forces massing on the eastern border of Ukraine, the...

By Left To Burn What happened to social democracy?  For most of the post-war era, it occupied a stable place between reactionary liberalism and repressive communism.  But recent years have seen a fundamental change in the status of social democratic parties in Europe. From deindustrialisation to far-right populism, their electoral strength has dramatically declined. In the first 2022 episode of Th...

By Joel Schalit It’s the most popular idiom in broadcast news. But few, if any listeners know what to call it. “Field recording,” as British music publications like The Wire and The Quietus call it, connotes natural sounds, associated with wilderness and sound art. Whatever the actual subject matter of the recording, the aesthetics are usually minimalist and standalone, either to be listened to as...

Military means caricature. At least when the left criticises it.  Not every soldier is a killer, and not every army agrees where it gets sent. Ireland, Afghanistan. Joe Glenton demystifies it all.  In the second part of this interview, Josh White talks to Glenton about the politics of the British military and whether it can be saved from the right.  Joe Glenton is an Afghan war veteran turned peac...

Soldiers get politicised by war. But few live to write about it like British journalist Joe Glenton . Josh White talks to Glenton about his new book  Veteranhood: Rage and Hope in British Ex-Military Life .  Glenton is a peace activist who served as a British soldier in Afghanistan until he turned against the war and decided to walk. Veteranhood is the follow-up to his first book, Soldier Box: Why...